By Scott Gilfoid: After picking up three straight wins to get his career back on track, super middleweight contender George Groves is (24-3, 18 KOs) will be looking to get his fourth consecutive win on Friday in his fight against former world title challenger Eduard Gutknecht (30-4-1, 13 KOs). The fight against Gutknecht will be taking place at the Wembley Arena in London, UK.
It’s not a great fight for Groves. In fact, you can argue that Gutknecht is a step down from Groves’ last fight against Martin Murray. Gutknecht hasn’t beaten anyone good in four years since his upset win over Vyacheslav Uzelkov in 2012.
Gutknecht lost to former WBA light heavyweight champion Juergen Braehmer earlier this year by a 12 round unanimous decision in March. It’s anyone’s guess why Gutknecht was picked out for Braehmer to fight, because he’s a super middleweight, not a light heavyweight.
With all the top contenders in the 175lb division to choose from, Braehmer – or his promoters – picked a super middleweight in Gutknecht for him to defend his WBA title against rather than a light heavyweight. Braehmer had no problems beating Gutknecht. That was the second time Braehmer had beaten Gutknecht in the last three years.
Braehmer had also easily beaten him in 2013 to win his EBU super middleweight title. Gutknecht also lost to Dmitry Sukhotsk by a 4th round stoppage loss in November 2013. If Groves wanted to fight somebody, he should have fought Sukhotsky instead of Gutknecht. At least that would be somewhat interesting of a fight. Instead of Friday’s mismatch between Groves and the recently beaten Gutknecht.
Groves, 28, wants to fight for a world title for the recently vacated WBA super middleweight title, potentially against Fedor Chudinov. The belt was in the hands of Felix Sturm, who the belt after beating Chudinov by a questionable decision earlier this year. Groves wants a crack at that belt or the WBA title that was recently won by Tyron Zeuge over Giovanni De Carolis.
Groves has a high enough ranking to get a shot at either of these two belts. The vacant WBA title is the ‘Super’ strap and the one held by Zeuge is the ‘regular’ belt. Groves likes his chances of beating the 24-year-old Zuege (19-0-1, 11 KOs). However, winning that title off of Zeuge could prove to be difficult for Groves, as the German fighter is not easy to beat, especially when he’s at home in Germany. In his fight last July against De Carolis, I had Zeuge losing the fight clearly, and yet the judges scored it a 12 round draw. Groves might need to make sure he gets a knockout if he wants to get the WBA title off of Zeuge. It won’t be easy.
“The WBA is definitely my preferred route at the minute, especially when you look at the situation regarding all of the other belts,” said Groves to skysports.com. “The IBF and WBC straps are tied up with James Degale and Badou Jack fighting with Callum Smith waiting in the wings for the latter, while the WBO have just announced eliminators which do not include me.”
I think Groves would easily beat Zeuge, as long as he knocks him out. If the fight goes to the scorecards, then it might be a different story. I doubt that Zeuge would defend his WBA title in the UK. Groves would have to come to Germany and fight Zeuge for his WBA title. A fight between Groves and Zeuge would definitely be a doable one for them, because both of them are with Sauerland Events. That’s a fight that can get made. It would just depend on whether Sauerland will want to match him against Groves. I know they’re both with Sauerland, but Zeuge might have more appeal to the German fans being that he’s from Germany.
If they feed Zeuge to Groves, then they could lose a potentially popular fighter one day in favor of someone who would be a visitor to the country. Of course, Zeuge is likely going to lose his WBA title sooner or later anyway, as soon as he’s matched against a good fighter. Zeuge looks very, very vulnerable right now. I don’t even think it would require that he fight a good fighter before he loses his WBA title. I think Zeuge.
Chudinov would be a tough opponent for Groves, because he can punch and he’ll be attacking him all night long. Groves won’t have it easy like he did in his last fight against Martin Murray, who did little more than cover up.
“The WBA is the way that I’m going and there isn’t a super champ at the minute, so my ideal plan is to face Chudinov for the vacant belt – that’s what I will be pushing for,” said Groves. “If the ‘Super’ option doesn’t go my way then I would love to fight Zeuge. I would beat him every day of the week.”
Groves vs. Chudinov is a 50-50 fight. Both guys have major flaws in their games that make them beatable. Chudinov likes to throw a lot of punches, and he hits hard. He’s not an explosive fighter. He prefers to bludgeon his opponents into submission to get his knockouts. Groves would be in great danger against a guy like that.
Groves is going to make easy work of Eduard Gutknecht this Friday. This is simply a mismatch. Gutknecht is little more than an aging 34-year-old former EBU champion with zero punching power. I don’t see Gutknecht as a world class fighter, and apparently the sanctioning bodies feel the same way, because they don’t have him ranked in their top 15 at the world level right now.
